Live data from Hacker News

Verified by Twilio

twilio.com

121–130 of 247 posts

Re: Verified by Twilio

#121
post #86
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is illegal in many countries but it happens nonetheless.

Not in some countries, because they have actual enforcement of the law.

The spam operations are usually overseas, not US based. This makes enforcement harder and takes longer time. It still happens, because I see news about busts in the press from time to time.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#122
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels good to read and hence gets upvoted, but it's just not true. US has dished out far more severe punishments for this stuff than the Bundesnetzagentur could https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multi... This is not about regulations, lots of these robocallers are straight up criminal operations who will not be swayed by fines. If Germany has implemented some technical measures against robocallin…

The measures aren't necessarily technical in a lot of cases. Anyone can claim a US number with very little effort. Claiming European numbers usually requires business address verification.

You only need to claim a number if you want to receive calls, you can make calls from any number you'd like.

FWIW I see lots of European countries that require you to provide an address, not many that actually require verification.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#123
post #89

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…

Good to see this comment. As a European citizen I never understood what this whole robocalling thing was about. In the Netherlands, there is the 'bel me niet' (don't call me) register. If you have your number put on the list, marketeers are not allowed to call you. If they do, they risk a hefty fine.

We have very similar in UK, but scammers don't care about no-call lists, and some companies offering physical goods will use Indian (exclusively in my experience) call centres - I don't know the UK law in this area but suspect is not sophisticated enough to apply upstream to those booking people to make nuisance calls.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#124
post #113

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…

Many Americans are allergic to the idea of the government doing anything but managing national defense.

And yet, people blindly follow their GPS on their phones all day, all managed and run by the US government.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#125

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…

European here, too, lived in several EU countries, received very few robocalls in my life. Do not think this is due to regulation. Exactly, caller IDs can be spoofed, and who gets the fine then? Should be something else: the way how we are used to purchase services, goods, etc... Or the markets here are too small compared to US that blanket dialing does not justify call termination fees... But not 100% sure.

I am from Europe and and I remember that robocalls were a problem in the past. Until like 10 years ago I received multiple spam calls per week, but then it suddently ended. Now I cannot even remember when I got the last spam call, but it has to be years ago.

So I don't think it must have been a language barrier or a market size thing.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#126
post #114

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…

The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.

I think it is because the phone companies (in the US) refuse to identify and block such calls.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in the U.K. for more than 8 years. I receive spam calls daily from a combination of London and blocked numbers. Everyone I know here also receives them frequently. I’m on the U.K. do not call list. It’s endless PPI, “your recent accident”, and just normal phishing attempts. When I’m in the Middle East it’s endless spam texts. I guess Germany has it figured out but by no means is this an American only pro…

I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.

A fair number of them are foreign companies, but the “our records show you were in an accident” calls are very much from the UK.

The foreign companies are basically criminal operations and countries like the US have taken action against them in the past by working with local law enforcement[1].

[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/mo...

Re: Verified by Twilio

#128
post #126
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.

I think it is because the phone companies (in the US) refuse to identify and block such calls.

Do you have any evidence of phone companies elsewhere doing this?

Re: Verified by Twilio

#129

I wonder how many of the spam calls are actually powered by Twilio? Is this an instance of a company trying to make money by getting paid by businesses on one hand to do spam calls, and getting paid by consumers on the other hand to block spam calls?

>I wonder how many of the spam calls are actually powered by Twilio?

Probably not very many. Think about it: the spammer has to pay for each minute of call time on Twilio. Let's say a spammer spams for 12 hours a day at $0.013 a minute. On average that's $9.36 a day. So if they want to do this with 24 "lines", that's $224.46 a day.

Now consider the the cost of (on-premise) phone lines provided by a company like Time Warner Cable: $25-$45 per line per month (the last time I checked). That's more like $36 a day. So with Twilio the spammer would be paying 6x the cost.

Re: Verified by Twilio

#130

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…

One explanation is that a lot of the scams are for things that wouldn't work in Germany. Like health insurance, extended car warranties, etc. For those sorts of things, lots of commission based referalls are available to the call centers for the US. They just have to send leads or sales, and get money in return.

Also, they are often manned by call centers in places like India where English speakers are easy to find, German less so.

Post reply on HN